Closure for receptacle



7, 1957 LING H. LEE

CLOSURE FOR RECEPTACLE Filed May 26, 1955 United States Patent CLOSUREFOR RECEPTACLE Ling H. Lee, New York, N. Y. Application May 26, 1953,Serial No. 357,421

1 Claim. (Cl. 215-43) This invention relates to closures for receptaclessuch as bottles, and more particularly to closures which tightly orhermetically seal the associated receptacles.

As is well known by everyone who has attempted to remove a screw typeclosure from a bottle or similar receptacle, such operation is usuallyimpossible to accomplish without the use of a wrench, special bottleopener or the pounding of the cap with a knife handle or other bluntinstrument so that the closure is deformed sufficiently to break theseal, any of which procedures requires the use of special tools and isaccompanied by the danger of breaking the bottle and the destruction ofits contents and the possibility of physical harm from glass cuts.

It is accordingly the objects of this invention to provide a closure fora receptacle which will seal tightly, which can readily be removed,which forms an efiective seal when replaced, which will not distort whenthe receptacles are stacked one upon top of another, which is Simple andeconomical to manufacture, which is attractive in appearance, which isadapted to mass production techniques, and which advances the artgenerally.

A closure according to the invention comprises a cover in the form of adisc having a flange which is threaded or otherwise secured to anannular portion of a receptacle to compress a gasket between the lip ofthe annular portion and the inner surface of the cover. The cover isprovided with one, or preferably more, arcuate embossments whichprojects outwardly in the opposite direction than the flange immediatelyabove the lip of the annular portion of the receptacle. The spacingbetween the embossment side walls determined radially of the cover ismade less than the thickness of the lip so that the lip extends beyondthe embossment on either side and does not interfere with the sealingaction of the gasket. The embossment is preferably crowned and the sidewalls parallel so as better to withstand static loading such as isimposed by the stacking of the receptacles one on top of the other. Theclosure is loosened by the application of light oblique blows upon thecrown of the embossments by a blunt instrument causing a momentarydistortion of the closure which breaks the seal.

These and other objects and aspects of the invention will be apparentfrom the following description of several specific embodiments thereofwhich refers to a drawing wherein:

Figs. 1 and 2 are plan and side views, respectively, of a firstembodiment;

Figs. 3 and 4 are similar views of a second embodiment;

Figs. 5 and 6 are similar views of a third embodiment;

Fig. 7 is an enlarged fragmentary sectional view on line 7-7 of Fig. 1;and

Fig. 8 is an enlarged fragmentary sectional view on line 8-8 of Fig. 5.

The first embodiment of the invention chosen for the purpose ofillustration comprises, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, a cover 10 which isin the form of a disc having an integral flange 12 depending from theperiphery. Although I prefer to form the integral cover and flange fromsheet metal, it is also possible to mold the covers from other material,such as a suitable plastic which is elastic enough to deform under ablow for reasons which will appear hereinafter. The flange 12 isprovided with a threaded portion 14 which engages corresponding threadsupon the outer periphery of the annular portion 16 of a receptacle suchas the bottle B, only a portion of which is shown in Fig. 7 as thebottle forms no part of the present invention and may be of any of theusual designs. Although a closure of the screw type has been used forthe purposes of illustration, it is to be understood that my inventionis not limited thereto but is applicable to other closures employingother means, such as friction, for maintaining a sealing pressure upon agasket 18 which is interposed between the inner surface of the cover 10and the rim or lip 20 forming the end of the annular portion 16 of thereceptacle.

Closures of the type' described above are widely used and have manydesirable features, but are inherently very difiicult to loosen afterhaving been tightened sufficiently to form a hermetical seal. Toovercome this considerable disadvantage, in my improved closure Iprovide one or more raised arcuate embossments 22 in the cover 10 whichproject outwardly in the opposite direction to the flange 12. The numberof embossments can be varied within the scope of my invention but ispreferably proportioned to the size of the cover, it being possible on asmall diameter cover to use as small a number as one embossment which isthen in the form of a complete annulus or ring. However, I have found itgenerally better to use a plurality of equally spaced embossments 22arranged so that the distance between the arcuate ends of adjacentembossments is not greater than half the length thereof.

Receptacles upon which the above described closures are used are oftenstacked one on top of the other in considerable numbers so that a largeforce is brought to bear upon the covers of the lowermost bottles by theresulting static loading. To increase the rigidity and minimize thepossibility of the deformation of the embossments and destruction of thesealing action as a result of stacking or other static loading, the topsof the respective embossments are crowned as at 28 and the side walls 24and 26 of the respective embossments are preferably made parallel andarranged substantially normally to the plane of the remainder of thecover 10.

The embossment side walls 24 and 26 are located radially from the centerof the cover 10 so that the spacing between the side walls is less thanthe thickness of the annular portion 16 of the bottle B, and theembossments 22 are positioned when the closure is screwed upon theannular portion 16 so that the lip 20 of the bottle B extends on eitherside beyond the respective side walls 24 and 26. With such anarrangement the lower ends of the side walls each pinch the gasketagainst the lip to provide a double seal so as not to interfere with theef- ,caciousness of the gasket.

The closure is loosened by gently striking oblique blows upon one ormore of the embossments 22 by means of a blunt instrument such as aknife handle or can opener. Such blows cause the side walls 24 and 26 ofthe embossments 22 to spread, momentarily deforming the cover so thatthe seal is broken and the closure can be manually loosened without theneed of special tools.

In Figs. 3 and 4 is illustrated a second embodiment of my inventionwhich is especially adapted to closures having a large diameter. In thisembodiment the embossni ents 21a and ZZb are similar to the embossrnents22 described heretofore with the exception that alternate embossrnents22b are less than half the, length of emboss ments 22a; he thi dembodiment shown in Figs. 5, "6 and 8-is similar to the secondernbodimentof Figs} and 4 with'theaddition ofinclentations 30,1 one ofwhich is "loc'atedradially of the coverwith respect to each of the 105%s m i 2 Th s indentati n ser to space the gasket 18 f r on the cover 10,l

It shouldb -understood that the present disclosure is for-the purposeofillust ratio n only and that this invent-ionincludes all modificationsand equivalents which fall within the scope of the appendedlclai m. g WH fArelo'sur'efor'a' receptacle such a a bottle comprising a coveriiitheifoi'm' o f'a disc having a substantiallycylindricalthreaded"fiang" depending front the periphery thereofengagingaeorresporiding'annular portion of the receptacle tobri'rig'theinhe r surface of thecover against theli'p of the annularportion by rotati'on, an'da gasket interposed between the inner'surfa'ceof the disc and the lip to act as a seal, said cover having an arcuateembossrnent located immediately said distance radially of the coverbetween the embossment side Walls being less than the thickness of thelip, the lip extending 1 beyond the embossment on either side thereofthroughout the length of the embossment so that the embossment does notinterfere with the efiicaciousness of the gasket whereby a slight blowupon the. embossment causes a momentary distortion of the closure tobreak the seal so that the closure can be readily removed.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS791,061 West May 30, 1905 848,785 Towle Apr. 2, 1907 1,095,470 -SchlossMay 4, 1914 1,124,450. Ipsen Jan. 12, 1915 1,463,145 Koss July 24, 1923.1,554,749 Merolle u Sept. 22,,1925, 1,588,652 Brown June 15," 19261,608,908 Norwood Nov. 30, 1926. 1,942,810 1934 Gibbs Jan. 9,

